Supreme Hypocrisy in Pennsylvania: US High Court Opens Door to New Appeal by Mumia Abu-Jamal of His 1982 Conviction

By Linn Washington, Jr.

One unintended consequence of the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling in a death penalty case that rebuked actions of a Pennsylvania Supreme Court justice and prosecutors in Philadelphia for conflict of interest was to open a new avenue for activist-journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal to appeal his own 1982 murder conviction in a trial that was tainted by the same exact type of conflict of interest.

That ruling by America’s highest court sharply criticized former Chief Justice of Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court Ronald Castille for his participation in a 2014 death penalty deliberation because that justice had approved seeking that ultimate penalty when he served as the District Attorney of Philadelphia before becoming a state supreme court member.

That U.S. Supreme Court rebuke cited judicial conduct rules in Pennsylvania applicable to judges who had previously worked for a governmental agency like a District Attorney. Those conduct rules urged judges to remove themselves from “a proceeding if [their] impartiality might reasonably be questioned” because of their former position with such a governmental agency.

The U.S. Supreme Court, in the recent 5-3 ruling that rebuked Castille, stated that an “unconstitutional potential for bias exists when the same person serves as both accuser and adjudicator in a case.”

Paris protestors for 21 years have held an annual demonstration to criticize the lack of impartiality by judges in Pennsylvania, particularly judges once employed as prosecutors and/or in law enforcement. Those protestors have also condemned misconduct by prosecutors in Philadelphia like prosecutors unlawfully withholding evidence favorable to defendants.

Paris resident Jacques Lederer, 82, has participated in each of those protests held since June 1995. Those protests, staged near the U.S. Embassy in Paris, took place weekly until two years ago when the protests shifted to once a month.

“I think the U.S. justice system is slowly changing…I hope in a good direction,” Lederer said earlier this year. The latest ruling by the US Supreme Court vindicates that hope.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the participation of former Pennsylvania Chief Justice Ron Castille in that 2014 decision which reinstated a death sentence violated both the constitutional protections of the death row inmate and ethical conduct rules for judges.

Castille had rejected the inmate’s request to recuse (remove) himself from participation in the inmate’s appeal that challenged gross misconduct by prosecutors who had worked for Castille himself when he was serving as Philadelphia's District Attorney.

A Philadelphia judge had voided the death sentence of inmate Terrance Williams due largely to prosecutorial misconduct -– withholding evidence favorable to Williams during his trial. But the state’s high court reinstated Williams’ death sentence in that 2014 ruling that included participation by Castille. That 2014 ruling essentially whitewashed the prosecutorial misconduct issue.

During Williams’ original trial, prosecutors working under Castille withheld evidence that Williams had been sexually abused by the man he murdered in 1984. Prosecutors falsely told jurors that the murder was simply a robbery gone awry. Some jurors later said that would not have approved a death sentence for the then 18-year-old Williams had they known of the victim’s repeated sexual abuse of Williams that began when Williams was only 15…

For the rest of this article by LINN WASHINGTON, Jr. in ThisCantBeHappening!, the uncompromised, collectively run, five-time Project Censored Award-winning online alternative news site, please go to: www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/3206